MICHAEL SAYLOR X ODELL BITCOIN PARK FIRESIDE

W what a week Michael thank you so much

for joining us yeah thanks for inviting

me happy to be here this is Bitcoin Park

welcome kind of crazy huh so a lot of

birds and bees buzzing around your Park

I I apologized to Michael before we got

on stage uh the backstage was actually a

little bit hotter than it is in here but

it's it's quite hot with all the well

all the head in the room so um our air

conditioning is a work in progress we're

we're we're trying our best here it's a

a small

Grassroots iterating project um to those

that are not aware Bitcoin Park is

supported by our members um so we have

members that support us on an annual

basis and that's who makes this possible

uh by a show of hands who here is a

member of Bitcoin Park thank you guys

would not be possible without you okay

well Michael's time is short so let's

just get into it

um first of all Michael it's been

absolutely crazy watching your Bitcoin

Journey uh you just go 0 to 60 and just

aped right into the space in a big way

um when you think about this week I mean

what are you looking at right now how

how how are you thinking about the space

how how have we gotten so far so fast

and

uh how do you think about that basically

I guess well I mean I I think we just

see great signs of Bitcoin adoption

throughout the world Bitcoin is an issue

so the fact you have

Governors that have interests the fact

you have a lot of senators that have

interests the F fact you have a lot of

Congress people that have interests the

fact that you have two of the three

major presidential candidates that have

interests the fact that you've got tons

and tons of uh wall streeters you know

you've got representatives from Fidelity

and black rock and the like that's

interesting the fact you've got a bunch

of operating companies you know publicly

traded operating companies like Marathon

that are here in size I mean there big

sponsor and uh and and all the other

public and and private Bitcoin miners I

think you you would have seen the

Bitcoin miners private but you roll the

clock back four years you didn't see any

public operating companies you didn't

see any public Investment Trust you

didn't really see any politicians I

don't think they would have well first

of all they they just wouldn't have any

interest it just would other than squash

it out like a bug like maybe negative

interest but no positive interest and um

you know and uh not a lot of enthusiasm

and now I think they can't help but be

interested so I think um

sometimes uh the message is the message

and sometimes half of success in life is

just showing up right the fact that

you're there is sending the message

regardless of what comes out of your

mouth and um I know in the in the in the

um you know in the world of say public

companies or or Wall

Street the worst thing is not for

someone to hate you

the worst thing is for them to be

indifferent to you and view you as

irrelevant and so you know that's a A

Kiss of Death is you're irrelevant I

don't even think about you

um a lot of people don't like Tesla

stock and a lot of people short it but

it's not a problem well you know uh

there's probably 20 billion dollar of

short interest in micro strategy but

then they go long Bitcoin and I think

it's good they just get up every day and

they like hate on us or like on us it

doesn't matter what matters is they're

engaged and so I think this week is all

about engagement you just see engagement

across there are celebrities there are

politicians there are investors and then

there are bitcoiners and then there are

the engineers and the Technologies they

all come together and this is presumably

it feels like this is the richest like

most uh most energetic Gathering of uh

Bitcoin in a long time maybe the one

that I remember is most

energetic yeah I mean it seems

absolutely unreal to me I remember uh my

my first Bitcoin conference was in 2013

in uh New York and it was just like an

empty exhibitor hole you know there was

a bunch of companies that had booths

that they paid for that no one was

standing at um some of them had Booth

babes that they overpaid for and uh most

of those businesses have gone out of

business and it's just the last if you

look at the last 10 years last 11 years

it's been absolutely astounding the pace

of growth of this space um and it

definitely feels like it's accelerating

even just this week feels like a decade

almost um in in in in terms of of

progress in terms of bitcoin's

recognition I mean I agree with you you

definitely cannot argue that that

Bitcoin is irrelevant uh it's definitely

more relevant than it's ever been we

have more haters than we've ever had

we've had more lovers than we've ever

had um and it's just been crazy to watch

so Michael um you have basically made a

name for yourself

with turning micro strategy turning your

baby into this Bitcoin accumulation

machine and I've you know I've had this

thesis for a long time that every single

individual every single government every

single company is going to try and

accumulate as much Bitcoin as possible

that that is the ultimate goal and uh

most just don't realize it yet and the

people that realize it first have the

most to gain um since you've embarked on

that that strategy we've seen over the

last it actually kind of took a little

bit longer than maybe even you expected

it definitely took longer than I

expected but we're starting to

see smaller public companies around the

world try and adopt a similar strategy

I'm kind of curious how you think about

that like because to me yeah I'm not

going to answer the question for you how

do you think about that these these like

smaller public companies I mean one

example would be like um The Meta Planet

that's happening in in Japan where they

just said we're going to do the micro

strategy thing in a press release and

the stock kind of just goes

wild you know I've got a chart that I

tweet and the chart shows that bonds are

minus 5% ARR for the past four years and

Bitcoin is plus

55% so if you're an operating Company by

law you're only up

until January of this year by law you

had to invest your exess capital in in

treasuries and you couldn't invest it in

the S&P index and you couldn't you know

an operating company can't reasonably

hold their excess Assets in real estate

Timber rights sports teams and Apple

stock uh the reason not well talked

about but the reason U Berkshire hathway

for example has so much cash is because

they can't buy the S&P index and they

can't buy more Apple stock because they

would trip a 40% Covenant or limit

that's put in place by the SEC 40 act

and if the company gets more than 40% of

its liquid assets uh in a security it's

no longer an operating company and that

means it can't take on debt it can't

issue option it basically blows up the

company you become a Investment Trust so

for a 100 years 80 years the law forces

operating company

to hold their excess capital in an asset

which is losing 5% of its uh economic

energy 5% of its purchasing power per

year

and when 2020 came along you know we

were pushed in the Bitcoin space but

there're really three crippling uh

defects of you know three crippling

things that keep a company from swapping

out bonds for Bitcoin or basically

putting Bitcoin in and bonds out the

first thing is you need uh the SEC to

endorse it as an Institutional or a

legitimate asset class a digital

commodity and not a security it's it's

either illegal you know because you

can't it's illegal to own Apple stock

you know it's you know and so and it's

definitely you don't want to have an

unregistered security so we had to have

digital commodity first step and we kind

of got 75% of the way there in January

it's not a

perfected endorsement it's like a it's a

grudging endorsement you know with

reservation but we cross the Event

Horizon you can't turn that back the

second thing that's required is fair

accounting you can't invest in something

that you only lose money in and you

never make money in just simple right no

one wants to invest and always lose

money and never make money but the

accounting rules before January were you

can only lose money in Bitcoin and so

nobody is going to buy an asset that

always gets written down and never get

written up and so that got that's

optionally fixed in January that's

mandatory Fair Accounting in next

January that's the second stool leg of

the stool and the Third Leg of the stool

is Google can wire a billion dollars to

JP Morgan every month and say put it in

t- bills and it's like 15 seconds and if

JP Morgan loses it it's JP Morgan's

problem the status quo right now is

Google would have to wire a billion

dollars a month to coinbase

while the SEC is trying to put coinbase

out of business and they'd have to cross

with cross river bank like a bank of

never heard of that's the only bank that

will actually take the wire so the CFO

of Google is not going to be so

interested in wiring billions and tens

of billions of dollars to a crypto

exchange as a custodian they want State

Street they want City Group City Bank is

the pred the successor to National City

Bank National City Bank was run by the

brother of John D Rockefeller it was the

Rockefeller bank so if you want a sense

of how long these relationships

run 30 years is a short period of time

so the third piece we need is we need

Banks to be able to custody Bitcoin and

then then they can buy it for you sell

it for you loan money against it and

then in that world you will be able to

get a margin loan at Sofer plus 50 basis

points against your Bitcoin you will

probably get five percent interest

you'll probably get the same interest

rate on bitcoin as you get on a money

market fund and if you had those two

things then a corporate it's like a

hundred billion dollars of Bitcoin going

up 20% a year yielding 5% with no risk

and a bank too big to fail is doing the

headache for me you could imagine Apple

might say put $50 billion dollar in

Bitcoin so we don't have that third

thing we're kind of in year one you

could say we're year zero because year

one is you get the third thing and you

get the endorsement without prejudice

you know but I would say that we're six

months in now you got 50,000 publicly

traded companies they're all capitalized

on toxic credit which is

collapsing you know one of the points of

my speech is if you if you build your

company on a capital asset with a

10-year useful life your company is

going to last 10 years and so all these

companies have a 10 to 20 year life

because they're sitting on a effective

Capital asset the driver for them to

switch from bonds to bitcoin is

bitcoin's got a useful life of 10,000

years if you self- custody it your

maintenance cost is you know one basis

point or something so the useful life of

Bitcoin is thousands of years the useful

life of a bond is a Dozen Years or 20

years the regulatory impediment keeps

mainstream companies and institutions

from doing it because it's too much

trouble and 2024 is that first year so

the reason that they're kind of creeping

into it right now is finally you can

sorted do it it's a lot of effort to

figure out who you're going to custody

with and how you're going to buy it

right now and you can buy it for 65,000

because you're doing the effort when JP

Morgan and Goldman Sachs do this it'll

be easy and it will cost

$500,000 so you get 85% discount if you

do the work and you take a little bit of

risk if you done it in 2020 you know you

would have got a 98% discount if you

came in in 2013 you got a

99.8% discount but that was a lot more

risk and a lot more

work and you know a lot of these in

institutions they're just like if I can

make a phone call in 30 seconds and say

buy $10 billion of Bitcoin they'll do it

but if they have to work harder they'll

study it for three years and then they

won't do it because why should they take

that risk and so we're in that

transition but I guess that makes sense

to me I mean risk reward I I have a

friend who always says the the best way

to measure how long someone's been in

Bitcoin is not how much Bitcoin they own

but how much Bitcoin they've lost um

just because it was incredibly risky and

also it's very easy uh to not stay

humble and and to lose lose your coin um

on various schemes

I guess where I'm going with it is

um and this is something that I'm

intimately focused on because of my work

at 10:31 so at at 10:31 we're a venture

firm uh that specializes in the Bitcoin

space we have a portfolio of 36 Bitcoin

startups you know they're all trying to

accumulate as much Bitcoin as possible

that is their goal and I'm trying to

separate in my head uh where at some

point it can't it I I think there's some

companies out there that are just kind

of riding on almost like cheap cheap

trick uh strategy it's like we say

Bitcoin we accumulate some Bitcoin they

don't actually have a business model um

they they they don't have a competitive

advantage to outperform the hardest

asset of all time um and at some point

that evaporates and and we we kind of

haven't hit that yet but at the core

what I look at

is low low low expenses keep your

expenses as low as possible keep your

cash flow as high as possible um and

just trying to accumulate as much

Bitcoin on the balance sheet while

growing in a responsible way do you do

you would you agree with me on that on

that front that there's a lot of kind of

just say Bitcoin or say AI right and as

a result your stock pumps and I'm

obviously not accusing micro strategy of

that I mean I think you've proven that

the stock is a creative and as you hold

the stock you you you gain more Bitcoin

over

time I I think that every business has

got a p&l and it's got a balance sheet

and the p&l is the operation it's what

you do and the balance sheet is how you

save what you do and so the people that

have it very easy the people that can

make lots of money right now are just

people that started with the money right

if you've already got the money and you

just could move it from a bond to

bitcoin then you moved it from minus 5%

a year to plus 50% a year and that not

hard right um it's very hard to compete

with Microsoft like it's very hard to

compete with Amazon it's very hard to

compete with Google it's very hard to

compete with apple all of those

companies are examples where they wiped

out 20,000 competent healthy hardworking

companies like if you ever been in the

retail business every single retailer

except Walmart got wiped out by Amazon

there's nothing wrong with those people

they're good people they work hard they

work themselves to death but at the end

of the day it's you know same with

Microsoft they have a monopoly on every

on 80 million business businesses and

they sld them their software for three

years and so so I think

that if you're asking me is it easy to

create a business in the modern world my

answer is it's not easy you can do it I

mean Mr Beast can you know it happens

right random stuff happen but it's it's

hard and it's and if you ask me for

advice in entertainment versus medicine

versus law versus software versus

whatever

I would say I'm not an expert in any of

those things I would say probably you

ought to look at AI because it's

probably going to you know disrupt and

obliterate anything that's labor

intensive is getting obliterated the

distribution is getting

disrupted and so that's hard on the

other side the the Bitcoin uh the

balance sheet strategy it's actually

quite easy right the reason I talk about

Bitcoin is your choice is lose 5% of

your money with Bob

or make you know if it's 50% right now

right my my forecast is on average the

ARR is going to be 25 30% over the next

20 years so if it if it goes the worst

case for me is it's got to go up faster

and perform better than the S&P index

and if the S&P is 10 to 12 then Bitcoin

is 20 to 22 so I basically uh talk about

that which I know I don't give advice to

people on on that which I don't know and

the and the sad fact is if I were to

tell you there's a 99% chance a startup

will fail I might be overstating your

chances of success 99% of the S&P 500 is

failing right now yep I mean there's

five companies and the S&P 5 everybody's

saying how do I compete with Nvidia and

that includes apple and Tesla are saying

I don't know if we can right what you

will see is a rise of trillion doll

corporations because someone's going to

give all the medical advice to billion

people with AI doctors without an

employee and whoever figures that out is

going to make a lot of money and it's

going to make Medical Care cheaper it's

going to put a lot of people in the

middle out of

business and there'll be disruption so I

don't think that Bitcoin is a pan bit

Bitcoin won't make your startup that

competes with Microsoft compete better

right it's not going to make you it's

not going to help you build better cars

than Tesla the dude that creates the

humanoid robot that's as smart as a

million phds you know that actually you

can buy for 100 bucks a month they're

probably going to sell a lot of them and

the dude that creates the second best

humanoid robot nobody will want to buy

it nobody wants the second best of

anything right they just want the one

they want the best one and they're going

to sell a billion so you know I think

the summary of that is sometimes people

think that by doing something with

Bitcoin it will generate a p&l for

them it's like okay I'm going to launch

a Bitcoin exchange and I'm going to

compete with my with Fidelity or with

Morgan Stanley or with Vanguard it's

like just because you sell and buy in

custody Bitcoin doesn't mean it's easy

to displace Fidelity and so I think you

got to have humility there and like in

in our journey for

example we got into Bitcoin you know we

now have 15 billion dollar of Bitcoin

but I'm not selling the Bitcoin to hire

Engineers to compete with Microsoft see

it would it would be like throwing good

money after bad right I mean so what is

a good idea well I mean our idea is

securitize the Bitcoin there are a lot

of people they want the upside of

Bitcoin but no downside right have you

ever met people they' like to make a lot

of money but with no volatility and no

risk many such cases Okay so so how do

you buy Bitcoin at the all-time high and

not lose money and then make money if it

goes up well you buy a convertible Bond

if I sell you a convertible bond with

70% upside that's 5x over collateralized

on the downside and you and if micro

strategy guarantees you to give back

your

principle it's like I'm guaranteeing

you'll get your money back in six years

but if Bitcoin goes up you'll also get

the warrant and so you're getting half

the upside none of the down or 5% of the

downside half the upside and that's the

security and so if you think about that

we're just stripping the volatility or

we're stripping the uh risk off the

bottom and there are a lot of people for

which for example if you go up to a

typical investor and you said what would

you like 20% return no volatility no you

know and little risk or 50% return lots

of volatility most will tell you 20%

even though that's the wrong

answer right it's the wrong I mean

you're going to take 20 instead of

55 well I just I don't want the

volatility so what we do is we simply

strip away the volatility and the risk

and give them what they want but other

companies in the Bitcoin space if your

idea is you're going to create a mobile

app that let you buy and sell Bitcoin

you're competing against cash app and

cash app is you know holding their own

but they're gonna have to compete

against Apple and Google and and Robin

Hood and look there are Robin hoods I

mean there are successful businesses but

at the end of the day if there's a theme

to this business is hard like launching

a business and growing a business is

hard investing is hard when you look at

every public company you try to guess if

their stock is overvalued or

undervalued versus their their cash flow

forecast that's hard it's not hard to

say it's a good company it's hard to say

whether the stock price is a good entry

point right investing is hard

saving was hard under the Fiat standard

but under the Bitcoin standard if your

goal is I have some money I'm GNA hold

it for four years that's easy I buy

Bitcoin if I'm G to hold it for four

years it doesn't matter what the

volatility

is and uh from there you know business

is hard man business is you know there

there's something happening in the world

which is

like how does anybody sell software to a

corporation if Microsoft look what they

did with uh slack look what they did

with zoom they will just take your slack

and make it teams and put it into their

three-year Enterprise deal and you have

to buy it and they will take zoom and

put it into teams and put it in the

three-year deals and you have to buy it

and it would be easier for a company to

leave the US than to leave

Microsoft just like apple not that

different right I mean how many people

want to throw away their Apple phone and

switch to a new ecosystem they've got

your stuff so businesses and if they do

switch they switch to Google right in

both your examples like mic you leave

Microsoft teams you go to Google suite

and what's the third choice yeah like so

so business is hard and it's it's not

that you can't create new

opportunities but Bitcoin what Bitcoin

offers is you can either use it to

escape the bond conundra

or if you're a private company that can

raise money or if you're a public

company that can raise

money you can securitize Bitcoin because

there are large pools of capital that

people have where they have to buy a

security for example a venture

capitalist they have to buy a a security

a participating a preferred stock in a

private company that might go public

they have a billion dollars they can't

buy Bitcoin they can't buy the ETF they

can't buy land they can't buy art they

can't buy a public operating company

they just can't it doesn't matter

whether it's going to go up by a factor

of a million they can't buy it their

Charter says spend the billion dollars

on private Equity so you you know they

can't buy Bitcoin but you can actually

create a company with Bitcoin on the

balance sheet and go sell them a

participating preferred stock with half

of the return of Bitcoin none of the

volatility they don't have to market the

market they don't say oh risking all

your money on bitcoin they're like oh I

made an interesting investment in a

Bitcoin based company they make

22% if they get a 20% return and the S&P

returns 12 they'll go back to their

investors and raise 10 billion more

dollars and the fireman's pension fund

will say oh you beat the S&P how much

money do you want so they need to do

that the guys that buy my converts when

I sell a convertible Bond I have a one

hour phone call I'm like okay this is

the bond this what we're going to do

okay they buy 800 million of it at the

end of the day okay why it's like they

have the money they have to buy a

convertible Bond they can't they're like

why don't they buy Bitcoin they can't

why don't they buy your Equity they

can't they need to buy there's a phrase

in Wall Street if the Ducks are quacking

feed the Ducks they want that there's

another group of people they want equity

in a public company they can't buy the

spot ETF they can't it's a it's against

their Charter they get fired just can't

why don't they well you're questioning

the world right I mean the end of the

day the world is made up of huge pools

of capital and it might have taken 20

years to raise the money now I got to

spend the money so if you are the

entrepreneur my general message is you

can create a security that a capitalist

can then use to get Bitcoin exposure and

if you're public you sell public Equity

or debt and buy Bitcoin and if you're

private you'll sell private Equity or

private debt and buy Bitcoin if you

can't raise money then you just got to

work very very hard and get lucky and

it's hard and you'll see a Zuckerberg on

occasion you'll see some breakthroughs

but you know it's like it's not easy and

so I my recommended strategy is not work

yourself to death my recommended

strategy is notice that there are $450

billion of capital in bonds and real EST

estate and traditional 20th century

assets there's 1 trillion so there's 450

trillion in those things there's 1

trillion in

Bitcoin you should be the conduit to

move the next trillion dollars from the

old world to the new world and the way

you do it is by raising money with

issuing Securities to buy Bitcoin and

you solve what's the problem you solve

custody it for them buy it for them take

away the volatility take away the

downside risk you know and then solve

the compliance issue Chinese billionaire

has got to buy Bitcoin through a

Shanghai ETF otherwise he goes to jail

right that's the problem you solve it's

not as good as self- custody is not as

good as the raw Bitcoin but that's

academic because when you've got 10

billion dollars in your choice is buy a

billion this way or go to jail or don't

buy any the answer the world is

imperfect that's why they call it Earth

not heaven

wonderful um Michael we have 15 minutes

um want to be very conscious of your

time we have a hard stop here and I have

20 different directions I like this

conversation to go so I hope this is the

first of many um first and foremost I

just want to

say

uh feel like there's a little bit of an

elephant in the room um Michael and I

have had multiple productive

conversations in terms of supporting

open resource development um we are not

going to go there today I I I don't

think that's the best path for for this

conversation to take um I want to talk

to you about your thoughts on bitcoin as

a transactional

currency um because I I think it's super

interesting uh being in the space with

you because uh we agree on so much and

we have such different perspectives on

bitcoin um but we we we end up in the

same space like 99% % we're on the exact

same page um the transactional currency

piece um might be where we differ the

most can let's just chat about that like

how are you thinking about that right

now okay well you know if I think about

energy frequency and vibration every

time you trade an asset it's a vibration

and if you're vibrating in a high

friction environment or a high impedance

environment you're bleeding off energy

and so things that you can C things you

can do in outer space

forever you can do in the atmosphere for

less and in the water not so much so the

real issue is when you're doing a

transaction what is the impedance and

there's there's a source of physical

impedance like for example what do I

think of gold as a transactional

currency well like I don't think it's

good because it's hard to subdivide it

and it's hard to send it over the mail

and so you can see how there's a high

energy cost cost to trade gold high

frequency that's why it died um on the

other hand like what do I think of Apple

stock as a transactional currency and

here you're just get into

politics in a country where Apple stock

was legal tender if it's legal tender

and I can send it to you and you could

send it back to me and I can do it in

one

second with no

tax then you know wow Apple stock is

better than gold now what do I think of

the dollar as as legal as a

transactional currency well what I think

is I can send it back and forth a

million times a day and I don't have a

million taxable events and so I don't

have to account for it if I send a

capital asset whether it's a corporate

bond an equity Bitcoin in the U if

you're in the US now if I move it I'm

moving it at high frequency and I'm

incurring an account event and a taxable

event and if you if you do the

calculation it just turns out that

everything just costs 10 or 20% more and

and so I don't if we were talking about

a country Al Salvador where it's legal

tender and I can move it back and forth

a hundred times a month and there is no

accounting event and there's no taxable

event then my opinion is if it's

satoshi's on Lightning I kind of like it

if it's Satoshi over the base layer I I

think at some point the friction is you

know when it's $3 a transaction yep

there's too much friction so I don't

like it on the base layer I do like it

on the second layer but I would counsel

anybody that if you had a if you had a

certain amount of money 95% of it should

be held in the capital account as

Bitcoin 5% should be in the local

checking account and as a practical

you've got real two two things you in

Argentina if everything's priced in the

peso and then you have to have pesos I

would probably buy them the hour before

I had to spend them but I would buy them

and on the other hand

if if something is legal tender I'm much

more likely to want to vibrate it or

transact at high frequency and if it's

and if it's going to be taxed heavily

you know short-term capital tax right is

like 35 40% right so if I if I gave you

a Bitcoin and it was up you know a bit

and I gave here's the thing I think we

both agree on Matt which is neither one

of us think we should send all our money

to the

government right very

[Applause]

true and I think that's why for example

tether has been so successful you know I

mean in theory a digital currency that's

just a dollar that's pegged to the

dollar at for high frequency checking

you know and a digital property Bitcoin

which you can hold for the rest of your

life as the property or the capital

asset those two paired would allow you

to go anywhere in the world and stay

rich or stay wealthy and stay compliant

and minimize you know what do you want

you want to hold the Bitcoin forever and

never pay capital gains you don't want

to like you know and you never you know

you just want to hold it forever and

then you want everything else to be

quick and easy so that's what I think on

that subject I mean so you think you

think the tax treatment is is the major

hurdle so it's more of a politics

regulatory kind of landscape issue I

think the government can basically

destroy any asset by the tax treatment

politics

matter like if they want to destroy it

right then for example you know here's

the best tax treatment legal tender no

tax on it you can hold it forever and

you can transfer it and there and

there's no tax what's the second best

which is capital gains or property

what's the last best property tax which

is a tax on time like you're holding it

and I want 1% of it you know I want 1%

of the market value every year

regardless of whether you trade it right

and and that's the land tax in the US

and that takes your money away from you

in 35 40 years so I would

say if the government passes a a

property tax on bitcoin you should leave

the country I would say if they're going

to capital gains tax it you should

manage yourself so you don't have to

transfer it very often almost never and

I would say if they made it legal tender

then you probably ought to move to that

country you ought to go the other

direction we haven't talked about

inheritance taxes yet right that's say

but that's the last part but I do think

taxes taxes are 40% of the equation they

matter a lot and generally the best

strategies are strategies that allow you

to defer tax or avoid tax and the worst

strategies or strategies that accelerate

the tax you're either going to pay it or

you're not going to pay it and then

you've got a legal liability and then

you got to worry about that and then

either way those strategies become uh a

friction you know they become a problem

yeah I mean I think one of the earliest

things uh you said when you became

public in the space was that that

politics and people aren't taking them

seriously enough I mean and I think just

the last few weeks alone have have

proven you right I mean just the panel

before us was was with our governor and

one of our Senators um we have the

former president of the United States

going to be speaking at at the largest

Bitcoin conference in the world tomorrow

um politics clearly matter um I think

one of the cool Parts

about uh Freedom Tech and Bitcoin as

Freedom money is is it gives individuals

more power when it comes to combating

governments or not combating governments

maybe that's too critical of a word but

uh defending themselves and and and and

supporting their individual liberties um

and as a result it levels the playing

field a bit and that to me has always

given me hope and I think uh you've

always been really good you have

hope.com Bitcoin is hope I mean we got

Larry Frink out there saying bitcoin's

like the Hedge against hope it's like

the exact opposite to a degree the

opposite thing yeah I think we can merge

I think we can merge that but anyway um

Michael I'm curious are we do you think

we're entering the era of nation state

government fomo like is is is are we

about to start seeing you know the micro

strategy Playbook happen on a government

scale I

think

it's it's positive that they're all

talking about it the Overton window has

shifted a year ago no one would discuss

it now you've got you know you've got

Robert F Kennedy talking about it you've

got a bunch of senators talking about it

uh so I just think we start with the

conversation I keep my expectations low

I think we should all keep our

expectations low but with the

observation that when a government

starts talking about owning it they

legitimize it and that means what

they're not talking about is taking it

away from you so when they're not

talking about owning it like if you look

at the German government they emergency

sold it because it could go to zero and

so The Narrative of it's not an asset

and it's a you know it's a criminal

thing and it's going to zero that thing

is pernicious and if you want to move

forward you have to put a firm

foundation so I think when the

government starts talking about it that

means that individuals and small

companies will feel comfortable enough

to move in they'll move first they'll

front run right the government's always

going to be slow it's always going to be

hamfisted there'll be a lot of

fighting but I think the individuals and

families will move I think if the

government's considering it it becomes a

lot less risky for you to discuss it in

the board meeting so when I go into a

boardroom and they ask me I can say you

know micr strategy doing but guess what

here are all the politicians that of

this bill and the question is will I get

fired if I propose it so I think the

Overton window is Shifting I I'm not

expecting you know that a government's

going to buy a ton of Bitcoin tomorrow

and put it on the wire I think I think

you have to Discount that I do think we

will over the next four years see some

government start to take a position

it'll probably come out of the blue

it'll probably be someone you didn't

expect and it'll be a good thing but my

I generally think this this plays out

over Epic four years this is the early

institutional phase then another four

then another four yeah I mean we've

already seen the smaller Nations to a

degree start Bitcoin accumulation

strategies uh obviously El Salvador is

is the one that's on most people's minds

I think it's pretty cool that you could

go to their like mempool instance and

see they buy one Bitcoin a day which is

like a nice little meme step chart up um

but like even countries like Bhutan that

we found out through bankruptcy reports

that they were just quietly accumulating

as much Bitcoin as possible um but what

is your given what may or may not happen

tomorrow uh do you believe the US

Treasury

should stack

Bitcoin yeah I mean I I just came from a

a presentation on the stage and what I

said was you know that the the 10center

strategy for the US would be to buy

500,000 Bitcoin the BTC the Maxi

strategy is they should buy a million

the double Maxi strategy is they should

buy two million and the triple Max

strategy for the US is they ought to buy

four million Bitcoin over the next four

years they would have like

18% of the of the supply and if they did

that they retire the debt and they flip

to a massive Surplus and and I you know

my precedent

is like the secret to success as a

nation state is you have defensible

productive property and so the reason

that the British Empire Rose is they had

an island and it was hard to invade it

nobody got to it after 1066 and that on

that island they

industrialized and then they got the the

colonies and that was defensible

productive land and then the reason the

US Rose to power is the United States is

defended by the Pacific on one side the

Atlantic on the other side Frozen tunder

to the north a desert to the South

defensible productive and what we do

well we bought Louisiana Territory

Jefferson did it for 15 million bucks

and he bought 27% of the land mass

Seward bought Alaska 7 million dollar

the United States federal government

owns 28% of the land in the US we own

whatever 18% of the gold or something so

scarce desirable property but by

productive property you can defend and

so if hundreds of trillions of dollars

are migrating to cyberspace right my

view is bitcoin's going to demonetize

Siberian real estate and Chinese real

estate and everything in Africa and why

would you want to own bonds of a South

American company why would you want to

own

anything other than Bitcoin so as the

capital flows you're going to see

hundreds of trillions of dollars there

so if you're the United States what are

you worried about losing your world

Reserve currency status where's the

money going to go to bitcoin how do you

hedge that just go to go to where

everybody's going and buy 20% of it and

then when they get there you know you'll

be fine that where else you going to go

right for example if you're if you're

going to sell the dollar right you're

not selling the dollar for the peso the

L the Euro nobody wants any of that so

when you sell the dollar you're going to

buy Siberian real estate no you're going

to buy bit buy Bitcoin what's the second

best you're going to buy a sec nothing

second best there is no second best

right

so so the point is you want a country

you want a country to be capitalized on

a firm foundation the foundation is

productive property that no one can take

away from you and bitcoin's beautiful it

is productive because the AIS are going

to want to move 10 billion dollars from

you know here to there every hour

they're not going to move $10 billion to

buildings or silver right or dollars

Lord knows they can't get a bank account

right so everybody's going to want the

capital if you want a company a family a

country to last and

prosper like how well would your how

good would your family be if you owned

100 acres in the middle of Manhattan

like how would you like to own a

thousand square miles in Texas right

something right own something productive

for a long time the catch is you don't

want me to take it away from you they

you don't want them to tax it and you

don't want them to steal it from you and

the beauty of Bitcoin is any country

puts their money in cyberspace nobody

can steal it nobody else can tax it so

even though it's brilliant for the US

it's even a better idea for Switzerland

or for in Norway or for turkey because

there's no point in invading your

country to take your stuff if all your

stuff is in cyers space so I I'm a big

believer I think it's good for the

network I think it decentralizes us

further I mean it'll be source of a lot

of interesting debates and dialogue but

you know if you if you believe you want

if you want to help the us then give

them productive digital capital and

anybody else you want to help give them

the same advice and if you hate somebody

if you hate someone tell them to sell

their Bitcoin and don't buy

it right that's the worst you can do to

anybody encourage them to not Bitcoin

because that's like en encouraging

Russians to sell Alaska it's like

Napoleon sold a third of America for 15

million bucks blew it on bullets and

blankets in the Napoleonic War we still

have a third of the United States so who

got the better

trade Bitcoin is beautiful and we should

all stack as much as possible stay

humble all stack SATs let's go